Unlike most people who work night shift, I couldn’t sleep at night on days off. For the most part this was convenient because I had a lot of Hebrew to work on—in fact my Lamentations 4 paper was already a couple of weeks late by this point—so I had tons of quite time to study.
However, there was a downside. At 2AM I would start to get really lonely and even a little creeped out by sounds outside. Fortunately, I was only an hour away at that point from being able to watch Family Guy on Adult Swim (every graveyard worker I ever met watched Family Guy at this time).
With great expectation 3AM would finally come.
About thirty seconds later I would have my first disappointment. Despite hoping to see a new episode (to be honest I would have been perfectly content to see an episode I hadn’t already seen five times) it would always be one I had seen dozens of times. I’m pretty sure Adult Swim only plays the same ten episodes over and over again (quite possibly to mock me). I’d ponder turning it off but then realize that if I wanted human interaction my only choice was the Griffins (the featured animated family). So, I always watched.
Then, ten minutes in, my second disappointment would come. Just like Adult Swim only plays ten episodes they only play three commercials. The first commercial is always a woman in a dark room in lingerie seducing you to call Lava Life. “Lonely? Looking to meet sexy local singles without the trouble of leaving your house?” she would tease. Then, in jarring fashion this upbeat Education Connection song starts. This beat waitress sings about how she didn’t do good in high school, hates her job (and in my opinion her life) and how she now goes to college in her pajamas (she makes online college sound so fun—I’m not convinced). Finally, this buff dude comes on and tells me that my lives’ dream has been to work on repairing boats and motorcycles and therefore I need to go to University Technical Institute.
By the end of these commercials I’d find myself arguing with the TV. “I’m not a looser I swear! I’m not like the people you are advertising too! I graduated from college with honors. I dated a model for six months. I’m in a masters program now.”
The third major disappointment would happen after an hour. I’d realize after the second re-run of Family Guy and now six or more cycles of commercials that I had just watched TV for an hour because I was lonely. I’d get this horrible feeling that the commercials were right—maybe I was a looser.
I was twenty-six, living at home with my parents, no girl friend, had been working a job for years I was way overqualified for, and was procrastinating on a Hebrew paper I might not be able to finish. Then, I’d stand up and see my dark neighbor’s house. I was totally alone.
At this point I’d have an existential crisis (I was a philosophy major—so you can’t blame me for this). I’d feel like had woken up in some sort of strange post apocalyptic hell. There were no other people around, just a TV, which mocked my existence, and seemingly everything was meaningless.
I would turn all the lights off and head back to my desk. I’d feel somewhat queasy—I think at least in part from all the caffeine—and maybe in part from the artificial light. Before I could start looking up Hebrew words again I’d write out Luke 15:1-7
Now all of the tax collectors and sinners were coming to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable. “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and loosing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
I would plead with God that he would come and find me on a dark street, in a dark house sitting all by myself while the rest of the world was asleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment